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LITERATURE .................................... Nikesh Shukla Spider-Man and the post-Snapchat novel How is your latest project, The Good Immigrant, going? We’re just getting all 21 essays to feel like a cohesive book now. It’s been a great process, one that has surprised me. Because it’s a mixture of people I know well, like Chimene Suleyman, Riz Ahmed and Musa Okwonga, and people who I only know through their work like Coco Khan, Sarah Sahim and Darren Chetty. And each essay has been surprising, hard-hitting and most of all, bloody brilliant. What was it like when JK Rowling hit donate to your crowdfund? Great. I think she’s amazing and I’m a Potter fan, but in reality, she’s one of over 700 people who wanted to fund this book nearly a year before it’s due to be released, so actually the thing that excited me most was the appetite for the book. It made me think, why have we had to make our own book, publishers? We told you the hunger was there and you ignored us. And now look! So you’re a big Spiderman fan? Firstly, he’s The Amazing Spider-Man. That’s important. He’s not Phil Spiderman. I accepted that Indians were never the main character in anything but there was something about his teenage self, caught between two worlds, super heroism and studies, that really spoke to me. In a weird way, it made my teenage years, of being in two weird environments - a mostly white school and my Gujarati community - more manageable. Spider-Man really nailed what it’s like to be a teenager. What’s your process? Six cups of coffee, procrastination? My writing process is ‘argh I have an hour lunch break, write, write dammit. Argh I have to get six hours sleep at least, before my baby wakes up, write, write dammit’. There’s nothing like a baby and a day job to give you the necessary fuel to find the time to write. Do you feel like those who grew up straddling both sides of the internet divide are uniquely placed to tell stories like your novel Meatspace? Will future generations, who don’t know life before Snapchat, tell very different stories to those of previous generations? No. I mean, there’s this thing about how there are only seven different plots. I think people will find different ways to tell stories. And they will be experimental and interesting. But we’ll always come back to this form, I think. It’s timeless. And as long as stories try to understand humanity, as long as we remain a mystery to ourselves, there will always be stories. You’re delivering the New Writing South Lecture during the <strong>Brighton</strong> Festival - how does it feel? Being asked to do the prestigious annual lecture is just mind-boggling. <strong>Brighton</strong>’s literary prowess is so high right now: Hannah Berry, Polly Dunbar, Emma Jane Unsworth, Damian Barr and so many more incredible writers make this city proud, man. Amy Holtz Nikesh Shukla will deliver the New Writing South Annual Lecture as part of <strong>Brighton</strong> Festival on Sun 22nd <strong>May</strong> at <strong>Brighton</strong> Dome Corn Exchange. ....71....